RLT Watches was founded in Yorkshire, U.K., by Roy L. Taylor, who worked in the watch repair and sales business for almost 20 years before starting to build his own watches and sell them online from 1998. From then on, RLT Watches has sold new and secondhand watches by many brands, as well as their…
This watch by Montblanc is the second, more prestigious watch in the new 1858 Collection presented at SIAR, Salón Internacional Alta Relojería, Mexico City, on 20 October 2015. It is a direct reference to the Minerva tradition, 1858 being the year of foundation of the watch company that Richemont Group purchased in 2006 and allocated…
The Montblanc 1858 collection was unveiled yesterday (20 October 2015) at SIAR, Salón Internacional Alta Relojería, Mexico City. The name of the collection refers to the year of foundation of Minerva, the brand that the Richemont Group purchased and assigned to Montblanc in 2007, and that had developed an important heritage of experience in chronograph…
Many prestigious watch brands are engaged in the quest to introduce their products to a wider audience, principally by widening the price fork downwards. One of the ways this can be done is to use quartz movements, and examples include Longines, Corum and Glashütte Original; another way is to use steel instead of gold or…
Symphonette is a new series of women’s watches by Longines. The name is a reference to part of American radio history. In the 1940s, the Swiss watch brand Longines sponsored a series of classical music radio broadcasts named The Longines Symphonette, on Mutual Broadcasting System stations from 1943 to 1949, and then on CBS until 1957.…
One of the things that has been happening in recent years is an increasing use of quartz movements by high-end brands, particularly for women’s watches. Longines’ 2015 watches for women are all quartz, and Pavonina by Glashütte Original, first presented in 2013 and with new designs introduced at Baselworld 2015, is another example. A lot…
Back in the 18th century, Pierre Jaquet-Droz became famous in the royal and imperial courts of Europe and far beyond for his amazing automatons. The Writer, for example, was a seated boy who could actually dip a real quill into real ink and write something on a real piece of paper. The Charming Bird by…
There have been all sorts of strange and unusual materials used in watchmaking, and Jaquet Droz have discovered yet another: eggshell. The elephant depicted on the dial is created using tiny pieces of quails’ eggs, in their natural colours ranging from light beige to brown-grey. The technique originates from Vietnam, and the motif, an elephant…
Triwa (the name is an acronym for TRansforming the Industry of WAtches) was founded in 2007 in Stockholm, Sweden, and it makes watches, watch straps and sunglasses. The brand’s founders (Harald Wachtmeister, Ludvig Scheja, Didrik Wachtmeister and Tobias Ericsson) and main players are enviably young and cool, and their main focuses are on fashion and…
When you are designing an entry-level three-hand watch, the question is, what can we do differently? Setting it apart from all the other three-hand watches on the market? In the Grande Heure Minute Quantième, Jaquet Droz provide their own answer, and the outstanding visual feature is the date window. The actual window is the customary…
Company profile: Unity is a brand that was founded in Barcelona in 2010 by Eduardo Peres. Their watches have distinctive looks provided by the case, with four side lugs (the brand calls them “staples”) that form a diagonal cross-shape, rather like Romain Jerome watches except that they are far more marked and projecting. All their…
Watches for him and her – his and hers watches, couples watches or pairing watches – have been an important trend in Asia – above all China, Korea and Japan – for many years, and there are signs that it is gradually moving westwards. As purchases by tourists visiting Europe are increasingly important in boutiques’…
Two new versions of the Eclipse, a watch that Jaquet Droz introduced in 2010. It’s a timepiece that has all the Jaquet Droz DNA: a symmetrical dial designed to be uncluttered, leaving as much free surface as possible, and a few quirky touches such as the wiggly hand showing the date and the unusual system…
This watch by Jaquet Droz is an interesting way of creating a limited edition. Each series, one in red gold and one in white gold with diamonds, consists of eight pieces, like eight frames from a film, showing a butterfly as it flits across the flowers. It recalls the multiple images created by Eadweard Muybridge…
The Grand Flieger collection by Tutima is directly descended from the pilot’s chronograph made in the late 1930s and early 1940s, that was fitted with the UROFA 59 flyback chronograph movement. It is shown in the photo below, image courtesy of Tutima: The historic chronograph was comparatively small when compared to the B-Uhr watches made…
Three koi carp are swimming in a pool amidst lotus flowers and rushes, and the fish are depicted using layers of translucent blue enamel creating an effect of depth, almost an optical illusion. While the fish and their shadows are shown realistically in this Jaquet Droz piece, the other elements on the dial are stylized,…
Classic Jaquet Droz: the 8 symbology in the shape of the case, and the automation that enables a lotus flower in the top part of the case to open and close at the push of a button, revealing a diamond at the centre. While the Lady 8 series by Jaquet Droz (shown at right in…
Several fashion designers have become the subject of movies: Isaac Mizrahi (Unzipped, 1995), Karl Lagerfeld (Lagerfeld Confidential, 2007), Valentino Garavani (Valentino: The Last Emperor, 2008), Coco Chanel (Coco before Chanel, 2009), Yves Saint Laurent (Saint Laurent, 2014), Martin Margiela (The Artist is Absent, 2015), and Raf Simons (Dior and I, 2015). Not to mention Devil…
This complex and beautiful piece by Blancpain combines a lavish amount of bling with intricate mother-of-pearl crafting and an unusual mechanical movement featuring two retrograde functions, for hours and seconds, and a day-night indicator. It’s a combination that would seem to suit the variegated tastes of women for watches, and it mirrors what other brands…
This watch by Blancpain, part of the Fifty Fathoms Collection, is a limited edition diving watch and the first of a series in the Blancpain Ocean Commitment programme. For each piece sold, €1,000 will be donated to scientific expeditions. Owners become members of the Blancpain Ocean Commitment Circle, giving them special benefits such as opportunities to meet…